FATAL FORTY-EIGHT: A Kate Huntington Mystery (The Kate Huntington Mysteries Book 7) (7 page)

Tim was talking to the black plastic speaker box next to the telephone on the table when Kate entered the conference room. The equipment was a bit outdated, but she figured conference rooms probably were the last to get the newer technology.

“Thanks, Jane,” Tim said. “Dig a little further back, just to see if anything else interesting pops up.” He disconnected.

“She get something?”

“Yeah. May or may not be related though. Late January, 2002, in New Haven. A Yale coed was reported missing by her roommate. She was found two days later. Same kind of torture marks, but these were inflicted before death, as was the sexual assault. She was left where she was sure to be found, but not with her hands folded.”

“Naked or clothed?”

“Naked,” Tim said.

Kate nodded. “So some similarities but some differences as well. Might not be our guy.”

“Might not, but like I said, same kind of torture marks.”

“Some coincidence.”

“I’m not fond of coincidences.” He scratched his shirt-sleeved arm. “They give me hives.”

Kate gave him a small smile.

“So where does that put us?” Tim walked to a whiteboard on the side wall where he had written out the original profile earlier. The
20 to 40
had a black line marked through it, with
45 to 65
now written next to it.

“This guy’s been killing for a long time,” Kate said. “Maybe even before the 2002 student.”

“Probably. These bastards don’t start off with torture and murder. They work up to it.”

Kate could hear his teeth grinding from across the table. “You’re dating yourself, by the way, by calling her a coed,” she teased, trying to lighten the mood some.

He obliged with a weak smile. “How’s the boyfriend, Tolliver, holding up?”

It was strange to think of a sixty-year-old man as a boyfriend, but for lack of a better term. “Not well, I’m afraid.”

“I’m surprised Lieutenant Anderson cleared him so quickly.”

“Oh, I’m sure she had one of her people do a thorough background check on him. But she picked up on the similarities to the New Haven cases right away.”

“Still, Tolliver could have read about those cases and faked the set-up to make Ms. Ford’s disappearance look like the same guy.”

Kate finger-brushed dark curls back from her face. “Judith said the purse on the chair, that was a detail that had been held back from the press.” She blew out air. “I don’t know Charles well, but I’m pretty good at picking up on whether someone is lying, or putting on an act. His grief seems totally genuine.”

And heartbreaking.

Tim walked back to the table. He picked up his tablet and tapped its screen. “No remorse in the posing this time.”

Kate’s mind had no trouble following him back to the 2002 case. From his tight lips and the deep crease down his forehead she deduced that he was now staring at crime scene photos. “May I see?” She held out her hand.

“They’re pretty gruesome.”

“I’ve been a trauma specialist for over twenty years, Tim. I don’t shock easy.”

Nonetheless she sucked in her breath when she looked at the screen. The woman’s youthful skin was covered with oozing cuts and blackened round marks, cigarette burns no doubt. Only her face was unblemished. She seemed almost peaceful.

“Does the expression one is wearing at death stay on the face afterwards?”

“No,” Tim said. “The muscles go slack.”

Still, the peaceful face had planted a seed. “Back to the thought that this guy may be re-enacting abuse that was inflicted on him as a child. Maybe he worked up to this,” she pointed to the tablet, “with a few rapes, maybe a little bit of torture. But when he went all the way like this, he found it disturbing. Maybe he switched from angry re-enactment to feeling empathy for the victim.”

Tim nodded. “Not enough to quell the urge to kidnap and kill–”

“And to see if anybody cared about these people.”

“But enough empathy to not want to inflict too much pain, so he kills first, then re-enacts the torture.”

“And poses the next round of victims,” Kate said, “in a way that shows remorse.”

“There was no semen, by the way, in the 2002 case. Just vaginal tearing to indicate the assault.”

“So either he wore a condom or he wasn’t able to ejaculate. Another sign of remorse perhaps? But there was semen in the later cases.”

“Injected postmortem.”

Kate was staring at the pathetic mess that had once been a vibrant young woman. “So the asshole
is
able to jerk off once he has killed.” She caught herself grinding her teeth.

Handing the tablet back, she asked, “Does this young woman have a name?”

“Yeah, Caroline Delaney. The roommate called her Carrie. She was an only child.”

“Oh, my,” Kate whispered, her heart aching for the parents. She caught herself midway through crossing herself. She finished the gesture and added a silent prayer that they had found some peace in the intervening years.

Tim sat down beside her and put a hand on her arm. Warmth spread up it, easing the tightness in her chest.

She patted the hand with her own, then withdrew her arm. Twisting around in her chair, she looked at the profile on the whiteboard. “So we’ve got a chronically abused child. The parent or parents are careful not to mar his face, which would cause others to ask questions.”

Tim flipped his finger over the tablet screen several times. “No marks on Carrie’s hands either. Just rope burns on her wrists.”

Kate nodded. “So he tortured some animals the way he’d been tortured. Maybe raped a few girls. Do you think he murdered before Carrie?”

Tim picked up the receiver on the phone and punched in a number. “I’ll have Jane check for sexual assault and/or murder cases, without torture, ten years back from then, in and around New Haven.”

~~~~~~~~

Sally stood in the bathroom and surveyed the tiny space. She wouldn’t let herself give up. She had to keep looking for a way to get help, or to escape, no matter how hopeless the situation seemed. It was her version of dying with her boots on. She’d be damned if she’d go out a wishy-washy victim.

The toilet was opposite the door, at the far end of the little room, with a bathtub to one side and a small vanity on the other. Could she climb up onto the edge of the tub without losing her balance? It would be tough to do with her arms strapped around her in this damn straightjacket.

But if she closed the door and managed to get up on the tub, when “Joe” opened the door, she could kick it hard into him and maybe knock him out.

She shook her head. It would take a lot of luck to hit him just right. She’d be more likely to fall and break her own neck.

The click and whir. Leaning her hip against the vanity, she lifted a foot and pushed down the lever to flush the toilet. Then she hobbled innocently out of the bathroom.

Joe gestured toward the bed. She sat down on it. He walked around to the other side and untied the gag.

The cloth fell from her mouth. She stretched her jaw. It made a cracking sound.

“There you go, my dear.” His voice was cheerful.

He came around in front of her. After holding the water bottle so she could drink, he picked up a bag from the bedside table. This one was brown paper. He took out a round styrofoam container and a plastic soup spoon.

When he lifted the container’s lid, the pungent fragrance of lentils and spices made her stomach gurgle. She wasn’t overly fond of lentils either, but she needed her strength. He spooned it into her mouth and she dutifully chewed and swallowed.

When it was gone, he picked up the gag again.

“Please,” she whispered, trying to sound cowed.

He ignored her plea and jammed the thing between her teeth, quickly tying it back in place.

The suddenness of his actions made her gag a little. That gave her an idea. She faked a retching noise. Despite her best efforts, a tear, more of frustration than sadness or fear, trickled down her cheek.

His face morphed into an ugly mask. “I’ll give you something to cry about.” He slapped the offending cheek.

Her head whipped around, but the cloth gag absorbed some of the sting of the blow. Her ears rang.

The benign look fell back into place. “I’m sorry, my dear, but you really must stop trying to resist me.”

Shock, fear and anger danced together in her chest. The emotions clogged her throat, threatening to gag her for real.

 He turned on his heel and went to the wall.

She watched him carefully and kept her eyes on the spot he had touched. Once he was gone, she hobbled over to the spot and head-butted it. That just started her ears ringing again.

Must be some mechanism on the other side that allowed him to lock the hidden door. But when he was in here, it could be activated.

So she would have to overpower him somehow.

Moving cautiously back to sit on the bed, she started experimenting with ways to get out of the straightjacket, trying to ignore the aftertaste of lentils in the back of her throat.

Yet another food she might never eat again, if she lived long enough to regain control of her own diet.

CHAPTER EIGHT

11:30 a.m. Saturday

Judith stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of the restaurant where Charles Tolliver and Sally Ford had dined a couple weeks ago, oblivious to the horror that was about to enter their lives.

Re-interviewing the restaurant’s owner about the customer who’d stiffed him had been a waste of time. He’d never seen the guy before, had no idea who he was, hadn’t notice what car he was driving, if any. None of the wait staff had anything to add either.

A piece of trash fluttered down the sidewalk, carried along on the brisk breeze. Judith wrapped her black jacket more tightly around her. She found coats cumbersome and annoying, but maybe today she should have worn hers, instead of leaving it in the car. She shuddered at the thought of the winter to come, that wouldn’t even officially start for another three weeks.

Twenty-five shopping days ’til Christmas.

She shuddered again as she realized the thought wasn’t as random as it seemed. She prayed to the God she only half believed in that Sally Ford would live to see Christmas.

Judith trudged toward her car, discouragement rounding her shoulders. Normally she could maintain a certain detachment as she worked a case. After all, leads that dead-ended and tedious interviews were part and parcel of police work.

But this case was different. She knew and liked the people who knew and liked the victim. And usually the victims were already dead when she got a case. This time, they could stop her death, if they found her in time.

She reached her car and dropped into the driver’s seat. Her cell phone buzzed. Turning the car on with one hand to get the heater going, she wiggled the other hand into her pants pocket to retrieve the phone. “Lieutenant Anderson,” she barked.

“Lieutenant, this is Agnes Crawford, you know, at the Cedars Apartments. You said to call if I thought of something else?”

A tiny bubble of excitement grew in her chest. Judith savagely popped it. Didn’t pay to get excited too soon. “Yes, Ms. Crawford.”

“Well, I did. Think of something, that is. Two somethings really.”

Will you get on with it?

“Yes?”

“On the phone, before the guy even came out, he asked if the vacancies were on the second floor. I said yes, one was. And then he asked about the fire escapes–were they stairs or just a ladder.”

A pause. “That’s a pretty strange question,” Judith said to encourage the woman to keep talking.

“I thought so at the time.” Excitement in the woman’s voice. Judith could practically see Agnes preening on the other end of the line. “But I plum forgot about it when you all were here.”

That was an odd enough oversight to make Judith wonder. Was this woman making stuff up to feel important? Sadly, people did that sometimes, sending the police on wild goose chases that wasted time and resources.

“And the second thing?”

“I got to thinking ’bout what that lady said earlier, you know, ’bout the other layout. I did have another vacancy. He got all hopeful lookin’ when I said that, but when I told him it was on the fourth floor, he shook his head. I pointed out the building’s got an elevator, even though it’s a bit rickety.”

Judith gritted her teeth.
Get. On. With. It.

“Well, he weren’t havin’ none of that. It had to be the second floor or nothin’.”

“Thank you for the additional information, Ms. Crawford. Just one question. Are the building’s fire escapes stairs or ladders?”

“They’re stairs. Good solid metal ones, plenty wide so people can get out fast. Was this helpful?”

“Could be. They’re all pieces to the puzzle. We get enough pieces, they fall into place and the puzzle is solved.”

“Guess you still can’t tell me what this is all about?”

“Afraid not, ma’am, but thanks again. Please call me if you think of anything else.”

“Sure will. You take care now, hon.”

Judith shook her head as she disconnected. Only in Baltimore would a virtual stranger dare to call a police lieutenant
hon
.

She sat in the now-warm car and thought about these new pieces of the puzzle. She was convinced this was their guy, and not just because Agnes Crawford had recognized the artist’s sketch of him. His behaviors were too peculiar.

And at the same time, they made perfect sense, if one is planning to kidnap someone and hold them prisoner in an apartment. He wanted a fire escape he could carry an inert body up, but he was a little guy and not a spring chicken. So he didn’t want to go more than one floor. Too hard, and the longer he’s on that fire escape with his burden, the greater the risk of someone seeing him.

So why not the first floor? And what was the significance of a particular layout of the apartment?

Judith put her car in gear as she silently apologized to Agnes Crawford. She now believed the woman was telling the truth.

They were far from having the whole puzzle, but Agnes’s pieces fit with those they already had.